Jacob Rawlins Receives Research Grant

The C.R. Anderson Research Foundation (CRARF) has awarded ISU English Department PhD student Jacob Rawlins a research grant. The grant will support Rawlins’ work on his dissertation, tentatively entitled “Building Consensus: Workplace Myth-Building as a Unifying Rhetorical Strategy.” In his research, Rawlins discusses how workplace managers persuade their employees to accept difficult technological changes by creating a workplace myth—an idealized narrative of the past, present, and future that defines the organization and unifies its employees. He will complete his dissertation in spring 2013.

As a branch of the Association for Business Communication, the C.R. Anderson Research Foundation financially supports innovative research projects in the field of business communication. Rawlins is the second PhD student from ISU to receive funding from CRARF. In 2011, Marcy Leasum-Orwig received support for her work on the genres of communication during World War I.